Video: How to Get X by Itself in a Division Problem

How to Get X by Itself in a Division Problem

Many different types of division problems require you to get the variable, or "X", by itself before you can find the solution. Get X by itself in a division problem with help from an MIT Masters Candidate in Aero/Astro Engineering in this free video clip.

Video Transcript

Hi there. This Ryan Malloy here at the Worldwide Center of Mathematics. In this video, we're going to discuss how to get x by itself in division problem. Suppose that you're given x/16 1=5. First, what you want to do is bring over the constants all to one side of the equation. You could do that by subtracting 1 from both sides. Now, from here we can isolate x by simply multiplying both sides of the equation by 16. The left side just becomes x; since these two 16 cancels, and the right side is just 4 times 16 which is 64. Let's suppose that you're given a slightly different configuration. What if it's 16/x-1=5. What can we do here? Well, again, let's bring over all the constants to one side of the equation. We'll do that by adding 1. So, we get 16/x=6. Now, here, we can multiply both sides of the equation by x, but in doing so, we're assuming that x is not equal to 0. If x were equal to 0, this expression would be undefined. And then multiplying both sides by x would no longer make this true. So, assuming x is not equal to 0, we can get 16=6x. Now, from here, we can simply divide both sides of the equation by 6. We get 16/6=x. If you want you can simplify that a little bit further by dividing both the top and bottom by 2 and we get 8/3. That's all there is to it. My name is Ryan Malloy, and we've just discussed how to get x by itself in a division problem.

How to Get X by Itself in a Division Problem

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